Texas A&M Bomb Threat Disrupts Classes, Football Fan Plans On Friday

A lot of uncertainty was on the Texas A&M campus after a bomb threat prompted a huge evacuation.

It wasn't the Friday football fans were expecting and there's still the question of who e-mailed the bomb threat Friday morning.

While no dangerous device was ever found, it caused a lot of problems for students and even football fans.

A mass exodus on the Texas A&M campus led to gridlock on the sidewalks and streets of College Station as more than 50,000 people heeded orders to evacuate.

An unspecified bomb threat was received by e-mail through Computing and Information Services Friday morning.

"I had no idea what was going on. It, everyone in my class were just kind of like hey let's get out of here," said Olivia Harrison, a Texas A&M Junior.

A Bomb Squad searched a suspicious item at Rudder Tower.

College Station Police Sergeant Blain Crauter says it ended up being an unattended bag that had plastic bottles in it that were to be recycled.

Texas A&M Students Olivia Harrison and Susan Beggs were two of the thousands of students who received the Code Maroon alert to evacuate.

"With all the like prior bomb threats at like TU and LSU and Texas State it was kind of like ok it's probably just a prank, but it's still you get that gut feeling of oh my goodness you know this really could be something serious," said Beggs, a senior.

Carl Hoelscher and his family flew in for the game from Midland and had to divert from Easterwood Airport to Bryan after the airport was closed down much of the day due to the bomb threat.

"We were well it's kind of unusual, it's disappointing you know you have big plans for the evening and we can't really get to our destination. We had a rental car waiting for us as Easterwood and we're in Bryan," said Hoelscher, a Private Pilot.

Here at Coulter Airfield there was still plenty of space but the planes keep coming.

And in Bryan LSU Alumnus Gregg Gremillion and friends were waiting for a cab to take them to Northgate. The New Orleans resident and his group had to evacuate West Campus.

"A New Orleans radio station, the ap on my iPhone said came through and said there was a bomb threat on the A&M campus and that actually you know made sense on why there was so much traffic," said Gremillion.

There's no word yet from police if they know who sent the bomb threat e-mail message

Texas A&M President R. Bowen Loftin also says events are continuing Friday night at the university and they will be searching other buildings over the weekend, but they believe the campus is safe.

Texas A&M Administrators released the following messages Friday night:

From Chancellor John SharpChancellor of The Texas A&M University System

"We are proud of the way university police and leadership handled the safety of not only our students, faculty and staff, but also those arriving on campus for this weekend's activities. Our officials responded quickly and efficiently, and we are immensely grateful the threat appears to be false."

From Dr. Bowen LoftinPresident of Texas A&M University

"We take the safety of our campus community very seriously at Texas A&M University. When the initial threat of an explosive device was received shortly after 11 a.m. today, we took quick action and ordered the evacuation of the entire campus, which includes 50,000 students and another 10,000 faculty and staff. Let me assure you this was no small undertaking. I appreciate Aggies heeding our Code Maroon messages and evacuating the campus in a safe and orderly fashion, as well as the outstanding work of hundreds of law enforcement, emergency and other support personnel.

While the university remains closed for normal operations, we have every reason to believe that the campus is safe for events tonight and on Saturday. High-threat areas and facilities have been cleared by law enforcement personnel, to include our residence halls, dining facilities, parking facilities, the Memorial Student Center, Kyle Field, Reed Arena and the soccer complex. We are continuing to diligently search other buildings on campus and expect for this effort to continue over the weekend.

We will not tolerate anonymous threats of this kind - an unwarranted action that significantly impacted the teaching and research activities on our campus today, as well as the disruption of thousands of visitors to Texas A&M. We will work with law enforcement personnel to aggressively continue our investigation, and pursue and prosecute the perpetrator(s) of this senseless crime."

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Clay Falls joined the KBTX news family in January 2010 and is excited to be covering the Bryan/College Station area. Prior to joining the Brazos Valley news leader, Clay was a reporter for more than two years with CBS 19 in Tyler-Longview, Texas.